Argentina's new president, Javier Milei, faces the monumental task of trying to revive a fiscally and politically bankrupt state. The self-described libertarian has a lot of doubters inside and outside the country. Promises about Argentina changing its ways have been made before, and all of them have failed.
But in a recent speech before the great and good in Davos, Switzerland, Milei stuck by his free market prescription and went several steps further.
As Reason's Katarina Hall writes:
“Far from being the cause of our problems, free enterprise capitalism, as an economic system, is the only tool we have to end hunger, poverty, and indigence,” [Milei said]. “The empirical evidence is unquestionable.”
Milei argued that collectivism punishes business owners and stifles innovation by destroying any incentives “to produce better goods and better services at a better price.” Countries embracing greater economic freedom are eight times wealthier than their repressed counterparts, Milei asserted.
“The case of Argentina is an empirical demonstration that—no matter how rich you may be, or how much you may have in terms of natural resources…or how many bars of gold you may have in the central bank—if measures are adopted that hinder the free function of markets, free competition, free price systems, if you hinder trade, if you attack private property, the only possible fate is poverty,” Milei said.
That's a variety of rhetoric one used to be able to hear from some U.S. politicians – back when those pols knew it was important to stand up for free enterprise, liberty and the rule of law.
Good times…now long gone, it seems.
Perhaps what we need is for President Milei to visit the U.S. and spread a bit of that old-time free market gospel.
It beats the heck out of watching our major political parties fight over which one of them will preside over our accelerating fiscal decline.
“Do not give in to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself,” Milei declared.
Sounds a lot like Ronald Reagan, doesn't it?
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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